The ability to easily add tables to your content can be very useful. Tables help you sort and present data to visitors in a format that can make your information easier to understand.
WordPress offers a great visual editor, but there are some things that it won’t let you do by default, like being able to create tables without having to learn code.
Although you can add tables manually to your content in WordPress if you have knowledge of HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), for many non-technical WordPress users, this is simply not a practical option.
Fortunately, WordPress plugins let you do almost anything you can imagine, and inserting tables into your content is no exception.
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn how to easily create and insert tables into your content without requiring knowledge of HTML or CSS or coding skills.
How To Create And Add Tables To WordPress Posts And Pages Easily With No Programming Skills Required
To create and add tables into your WordPress content with no HTML or CSS knowledge required, we’ll use a FREE WordPress plugin called TablePress.
TablePress – WP Plugin
A very powerful and time-saving plugin that makes creating, editing and managing tables in your WordPress posts and pages simple and easy is TablePress.
TablePress doesn’t require you to have any knowledge of HTML, CSS, etc. It provides a simple interface that lets you easily edit your table data. Your tables can contain any kind of data, even formulas.
An additional JavaScript library can be used to add features like pagination, sorting, filtering, and more for your site visitors. You can insert tables into your page content using shortcodes and even display tables using text widgets.
A table can also be imported and exported from/to CSV files (e.g. from Excel), HTML files, and JSON.
TablePress was written and developed by Tobias Bäthge and is licensed as Free Software under GNU General Public License 2 (GPL 2).
Using TablePress Plugin For WordPress – Tutorial
To create and manage tables in WordPress, install and activate the TablePress plugin.
You can download the plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it from within your Dashboard …
After the plugin has been installed and activated, you will see a new menu item added to your admin menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and choose Plugin Options from the list of submenus …
The “Plugin Options” section affects the plugin’s behavior in different areas of your site …
For example, in the “User Options” section, you can specify the position of the TablePress menu entry in your admin menu.
Normally, the menu entry appears somewhere near the middle of your menu column. If you plan to use this plugin a lot, then you can easily position the menu option close to the top of the admin menu by choosing “Top-level (middle)” in the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu entry now shows closer towards the top area of your menu list …
You can also specify other plugin options in the “Plugin Options” screen, like formatting styles for your tables, default language, and so on. Leave all default options as they are if you don’t need to change things in this area.
With TablePress, tables are created and edited inside the plugin section. Tables are then placed via a shortcode into your content. Your tables will then display or update after your post or page is published.
The advantage of working directly from the plugin is that you can easily modify the data inside your tables without having to open any of your pages and posts. TablePress then updates all of your table data in all instances where the table has been added to your content.
To create a new table select TablePress > Add New Table …
Enter a table name, a description (optional), and the number of rows and columns you want for your new table into the “Add New Table” form in the Add New tab, then click on the Add Table button to create your new table. You can change the name, description and size of any tables you create at anytime…
Once your new table is created, it will display in the “All Tables” list and get assigned a unique Shortcode ID …
The TablePress shortcode lets you easily insert tables anywhere inside a post or page simply by typing or copying and pasting the shortcode wherever you want your table to be displayed …
Once a new table has been created, adding content to your table is very easy.
In the “Table Content” section, click inside the cell and either type or paste your content. You can add text, images and HTML formatting to your content (e.g. add bold text, insert links, etc …)
Once your new table is created, you will see a number of additional options that will allow you to configure your table.
For example, in the “Table Options” section you can select the first row of your table to be the table header and the last row of the table to be the table footer, display alternate background colours on consecutive rows, highlight a row when a visitor hovers their mouse over the table, print the table name and description above or below the table, and more …
You can also modify your table information after creating it in the “Table Manipulation” subsection. You can perform various manipulations on your table, like inserting images or links, hiding, showing, inserting, deleting and duplicating selected columns and rows, adding new columns and rows, combining cells, etc …
You can also enable JavaScript library features in your tables that will allow visitors to sort, filter and search your table content, change the number of table rows displayed on your post (and let visitors specify the number of rows displayed), display table information, etc …
You can preview your table anytime, by clicking on the Preview button …
A preview window will open on your screen displaying your table. Certain features such as the JavaScript options are disabled in preview mode, but will display when your table is published …
Remember to click the Save Changes button after you are done editing to save your new table information …
After you have created one or more tables, you can view a list of all your tables by selecting TablePress > All Tables …
All your tables are displayed in this section. You can edit, see the shortcode, copy, export, delete and preview tables …
Using The TablePress Shortcode
You can insert a table into pages and posts using a shortcode.
Click on the Show Shortcode menu item under your table title to get the shortcode …
The plugin also adds a menu item to your WordPress editor. This allows you to easily insert tables into your posts and pages while working on your content.
Place your mouse cursor where you want the table to appear then click the TablePress menu icon …
TablePress Menu Icon In Visual Editor Screen
Note: You can also add a table when working inside the “Text” area of the editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In HTML Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon displays a list of all your existing tables.
Select the table you want to embed into your content and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be added …
Publish the post or page to display your table contents …
As stated earlier, one of the great things about this plugin is that you can change data after publishing the table without having to edit your post or page. Tweak the content in the plugin area, then save your new table settings and refresh your page to view the updated content.
Another great time-saving feature of the TablePress plugin, is that if you plan to keep adding new data to an existing table, just export your current table, then add new data, make changes, etc. You can then re-import your table file with the news changes and your table content will be automatically updated throughout your site.
To export a table, select TablePress > Export a Table in the WP admin menu …
In the “Export Tables” section, select the table(s) you want to export (you can select multiple tables by holding down the “Ctrl” key), then select the Export Format you want(e.g. CSV) and any other export options you’d like to make and click on the Export Table button to download the table file to your hard drive …
After editing and resaving the table file, you can then reimport the table into WordPress.
To import a table into WordPress from your hard drive, go to your sidebar menu and choose TablePress > Import a Table …
TablePress can import tables from existing data, such as CSV file data, from a spreadsheet application (e.g. Excel), an HTML file, or its own format.
To import a table, select and enter the source in the “Import Tables” area. You can also import multiple tables from a ZIP file and select whether to import tables as a new table or write over an existing table.
For more information about TablePress, including accessing documentation about extra features, get technical support, contact the plugin author, etc., click on the “About Tab” in the plugin admin section, or select TablePress > About TablePress …
As you can see, TablePress is quite a powerful and feature-rich plugin that is free and will help you easily create and embed tables into your WordPress posts and pages.
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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)